The Enemy Within

Transcript

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Monday 27th October 2014

On the 29th August 2012, three Australian soldiers were gunned down inside their patrol base in Afghanistan. The killer was an Afghan soldier they had been helping to train. They believed he was a comrade in arms. They were wrong.

The soldiers, Lance Corporal 'Rick' Milosevic, Sapper James Martin and Private Robert Poate, had been sent to a remote patrol base they knew very little about, amid a surge of 'green on blue' attacks by Afghan soldiers on Coalition troops.

Defence maintains there was no failure of intelligence prior to the mission, and that the platoon commanders were responsible for security arrangements on the night in question.

"There was no intelligence available to Australia or the Coalition to suggest there was a specific insider threat." - Air Marshal Binskin

For two years, Robert Poate's father, Hugh, has pushed for an independent inquiry to examine the circumstances that led to the death of his son and the other soldiers.

"You see there's no transparency... it follows that there's no accountability. Defence have never had to submit to a civilian court before."

For the past two weeks, a Queensland Coroner has conducted an inquiry which has shed new light on the deadly insider attack.

This week on Four Corners, reporter Quentin McDermott examines the chain of events that led to the killings. He talks to eye witnesses, piecing together what happened on the night. Four Corners also seeks answers from the killer, now held in an Afghan jail.

Four Corners examines allegations that failures in planning and confusion higher up the chain of command may have led to insufficient force protection measures at the time of the attack.

Ultimately the question remains; could the deaths of the three Australians have been prevented?

"The Enemy Within", reported by Quentin McDermott and presented by Kerry O'Brien, goes to air on Monday 27th October at 8.30pm on ABC. It is replayed on Tuesday 28th October at 11.00am and 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 on Saturday at 8.00pm, ABCiview and at abc.net.au/4corners.

Transcript

The Enemy Within - 20th October 2014

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: Welcome to the program.

Every Australian's soldier's death while fighting in Afghanistan over the 12 long years of war has been heartfelt.

But there's a particular pathos about those where the enemy was supposed to be a friend.

The training of Afghan forces was fundamental to the coalitions whole purpose in being in the country and to the Australian purpose in Uruzgan Province, it came at a big cost.

Of the 41 Australian deaths in Afghanistan, seven were not from field combat but from so called 'green on blue' attacks by Afghan National Army soldiers being trained and mentored by the Australians.

Tonight's program focuses on the night of August 29th, 2012, when a lone Afghan National Army sergeant shot and killed three of his Australian mentors while they played cards.

And Australian Defence Department inquiry with heavily censored evidence failed to satisfy the families of the three men.

This a story of their fight to see the full truth about responsibility aired through a civil coronial hearing in Queensland which has just finished.

JEREMY KELLY, JOURNALIST: I'm hoping you can explain why you did this action?

HEKMATULLAH, FMR SERGEANT (translated): When they were burning holy Korans, and I saw a film showing that, I did that.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: And the soldiers' families challenge the Army over whether senior commanders did enough to protect the men.

HUGH POATE, FATHER: If a bullet is coming in your direction with your name on it, well, well that's it. You would be devastated. The families are going to be devastated but we accept the risk.

In this case I believe the incident was um preventable. It was due to incompetence and negligence and that's the big difference.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Hugh Poate's son Robbie was 23-years-old and had seen less than three months active service when he was killed.

Robbie Poate joined the Army in 2009, and excelled in training as a Bushmaster crew commander.

HUGH POATE: His leadership skills were exceptional and it's very unusual for a junior soldier of only three-and-a-half-years to be, firstly a Crew Commander of a Bushmaster and secondly when he went to Afghanistan in war he was the lead vehicle in the convoys and patrols.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Bushmasters like the one commanded by Robbie Poate would ferry infantry in and out of remote, heavily-fortified patrol bases.

The vehicles were armoured - but not immune to landmines or IED's - the deadly improvised explosive devices which were hidden in walls or by the sides of roads, and which could be triggered remotely by insurgents as the troops passed by.

Sapper James Martin enlisted in the Army in 2011.

Along with Robbie Poate, he was deployed to Afghanistan in June 2012, where, as a combat engineer, he was tasked with the extremely hazardous job of searching for IEDs.

His mother Suzanne was well aware of the heavy burden of responsibility borne by her son.

SUZANNE THOMAS, MOTHER: He was very realistic about the fact that you know um, he could be killed or injured. I mean he was a searcher so the chances of that happening were pretty high.

But he did have a strong ethos that, he was there to save lives. The lives of his mates, he would put his life on the line... for the sake of his mates and all of them do.

JOHN CANTWELL, MAJOR-GENERAL RET'D, COMMANDER JOINT TASK FORCE 633, 2010-11: They led. They were out the front with that mine detector or the probe, trying to find a safe path. This was really an IED war. So the engineers I think are utter heroes and ah and ah the engineer regiment of which he was a part of have taken a very very heavy toll in this battle.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: The third digger to die in the lethal insider attack was Lance Corporal Stjepan Milosevic, known as Rick to his family and Milo to his comrades.

Milo was 40-years-old. He had joined the Army four years earlier and, like Robbie Poate was deployed to Afghanistan as a Bushmaster crew commander.

He was on his second tour of duty after earlier serving in Iraq.

(To Kelly Walton) he joined up late didn't he?

KELLY WALTON, WIDOW: He did.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: ... in life.

KELLY WALTON: He had a mid-life crisis (laughs).

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Why was that, tell me about that.

KELLY WALTON: It was something that he'd always wanted to do and he felt that he needed to do it.

He was changed for the better. He was happy. Um, he was finally doing something that, that he was good at and he was, ah, very happy to do it.

JOHN CANTWELL: I um, had a chance to meet Milo in Iraq in 2010.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Major General John Cantwell is a former commander of Australia's forces in Afghanistan and the wider Middle East.

JOHN CANTWELL: And he stood out to me because he was older than the rest of the guys. They were quite a small team and I got to know them well and um, I had the privilege of pinning onto Milo's chest his Iraq campaign metal ah, medal when he finished his tour of duty in Baghdad.

So I, I knew him. And when I saw the headlines and then saw the photo and the name it... it was really painful.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: When John Cantwell commanded Australia's troops in Afghanistan, a key part of the multi-national mission was to train, advise and support the Afghan National Army, or ANA.

The emphasis was on mentoring the Afghan army so that Australian troops could start handing over combat and internal security responsibilities before eventually pulling out.

JOHN CANTWELL: Well our main aim was to train the Afghans and to get them to fight and die for their country as opposed to Australians and others fighting and dying for Afghans.

And that mission was absolutely central to our whole strategic aim.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: By its very nature, mentoring the ANA meant Aussie diggers getting close to Afghan soldiers, and building an atmosphere of trust and close collaboration.

JOHN CANTWELL: If you got to know the people that you were fighting alongside, that you were training, and spent time you know around a... a cook pot, sharing a cup of tea, playing a bit of soccer - that happened all the time, almost every day, inside the far flung patrol bases out in the valleys of Uruzgan Province.

And it worked because the relationships that that the Australians enjoyed with the Afghans were mostly positive and that built trust.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: But the trust began to be seriously undermined when a spate of insider attacks was carried out by Afghan army soldiers on troops from ISAF - the International Security Assistance Force.

In 2011, three Australian diggers were gunned down, and seven more wounded at a parade.

The deaths brought the hazards of mentoring into sharp perspective.

CLIVE WILLIAMS, PROFESSOR, MILITARY AND SECURITY LAW, ANU: I think there's a sense of shock on the part of soldiers when people they thought were allies turn on them. It then means that you no longer trust the people that you're supposed to be working with and it just drives a wedge between you.

(To John Cantwell)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: There's a fatal paradox isn't there in the nature of mentoring that in order to mentor effectively you have to get close to the soldiers you're trying to help. But the closer you get the more vulnerable you become to insider attack?

JOHN CANTWELL: I think that's a, a reasonable summary. It... it does all revolve around trust and trust is built and sustained and in... and grown through more and more interlocking activities.

At some point the risks attached to that also grow. But even so I can't see how a mentoring mission, one built on training and let... getting the Afghans to lead their own con... ah, security operations could have been achieved without that sort of close interaction.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In 2012, as ISAF mounted a surge in the recruitment and mentoring of ANA soldiers, so the number of insider or 'green on blue' attacks increased.

CLIVE WILLIAMS: The areas where they've had the problems have been essentially where the soldiers, in the army reluctantly. They don't want to be there, they want to go home. Um, they resent the foreigners being there and it's a different situation entirely for them.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Some green on blue attacks were motivated by cultural and religious anger.

When US soldiers at Bagram Air Base inadvertently burned copies of the Koran in February 2012 violent protests ensued, prompting an abject apology by the US and ISAF Commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen.

JOHN ALLEN, GENERAL, FEB 2012: We are thoroughly investigating the incident, and we are taking steps to ensure that this does not ever happen again. I assure you, I promise you this was not intentional.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In Afghanistan, Robbie Poate, James Martin and Rick Milsoevic served with mentoring team Bravo at the forward operating base where just 10 months earlier, three Aussie diggers had been gunned down in a green on blue attack.

Despite this, in phone calls home relations with the Afghan army were reported to be good.

SUZANNE THOMAS: They seemed to get on well. The... mingling was limited, but yeah they were quite happy to play cricket and... and it was, he seemed to have quite good fun.

HUGH POATE: I'd said to him one day 'Look I'm really concerned about these insider attacks, these green on blues. How do you find the Afghan National Army guys that you're mentoring?'

And he said 'They're a fantastic mob of guys'. He said 'They're no problem. Um, we, we play cricket together and what have you. We're, we're fighting the same enemy'.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: On August the 28th 2012, James Martin, Robbie Poate and Rick Milosevic joined a 24-man platoon which left the forward operating base at Sorkh Bed and made its way via the multi-national base of Tarin Kot to Patrol Base Wahab.

Wahab is a remote outpost 23 kilometres north of Tarin Kot in the Baluchi valley.

It was unfamiliar territory, and none of the soldiers had visited the base before.

HUGH POATE: Wahab was not within their original, tactical area of responsibility. It was the tactical area of responsibility of mentoring team Delta.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Patrol Base Wahab is in the Taliban stronghold of Darafshan. Four Corners is the first film crew to enter the base and film here.

The platoon was on a 10-day mission as part of a mentoring surge designed to help the Afghan army co-ordinate with other bases in the region.

It was a hazardous area in which to operate.

JOHN CANTWELL: This was a particularly sharp spot to be. So, I don't know if it was more prone to insider attacks, but it was certainly a place where there was a significant and active Taliban presence and some sympathies locally to the Taliban objectives.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: On August the 29th, in the searing heat, the platoon went out on patrol with their Afghan army colleagues.

During the day, they found an explosive device.

ROBBIE DIXON, SAPPER: It was quite a big device. So if it did go off, it would've hurt a lot of people. We checked it out and... and it was too big for our engineer ah, brick commander to... to detonate, so we called the Americans in to come and blow it up.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: The men were fully kitted up in 48 degree heat, and when they returned to base that afternoon they were allowed to remove their body armour and helmets, change into PT (physical training) gear, cool down and relax.

ROBBIE DIXON: The minute we were told that we were allowed PT gear, I don't think I could've changed any quicker!

It was just such a relief to get, to get out of the gear. Everyone just jumped at the opportunity and we all stripped down and... and got changed um, as soon as possible really.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Patrol Base Wahab is a small, narrow space.

Realising it was impossible to set up a separate, secure area, the platoon commander told his men to park their armoured vehicles near the entrance and set up camp against the blast-proof walls.

The Australian's set up a makeshift gym and some of the Afghan soldiers wandered over to join them and swap patches.

As night fell, Milo, Marto and Poatey joined the other diggers relaxing under a tarp next to one of their vehicles, and an armed guard, or roving picket was assigned to protect the men against attack.

ROBBIE DIXON: There was a group of six or seven of us playing ah, a board game and another group playing cards.

We were playing our board game, having a great time, and we were all just laughing and it was... it was just a really relaxed, really relaxed time.

HUGH POATE: Some guys were sitting on their camp stretchers watching movies, writing letters, some had already gone to bed and were asleep.

And just as the last hand of poker was being played, Robbie was standing up, the others were sitting down which is why he was probably an easy target. And that's when Hekmatullah opened up on them with, an M16 NATO-issue (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) rifle.

ROBBIE DIXON: All of a sudden just... just a loud ah, a loud machine gun burst or a rifle burst it was, but a semi-automatic burst. And it was... it was quite surreal.

CORY NEILL, PRIVATE: It was just chaotic. So he's shooting at us from eight metres away - whatever it was, and then you have the towers opening up and... you just, you just had shots from everywhere and... I initially thought it was machine gun fire coming over, kind of... basically kind of raining on us.

CORY NEILL: We had one medic on the ground and the rest of us were just combat first aiders or even army first aiders.

Even if you thought they might have passed away, the boys were still working on 'em until the choppers come.

Yeah, the boys just, did everything they possibly could.

ROBBIE DIXON: By that stage you could tell that it was too late. But to the guys' credit, no-one stopped. No-one stopped working.

Even when they were on the stretchers getting carried out we, we were still giving it our all to try and... to try and um, to try and keep them alive.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: To the dismay of the soldiers who survived the murderous attack, the killer, Sergeant Hekmatullah escaped unscathed, and with the help of the Taliban, was able to make his way to Pakistan, where he was greeted as a hero.

TRENT SCOTT: As for his motivation, look I'm pretty keen to have a chat to him, and, and determine that um. And if he shows his face again we'll... we'll do that, we'll have a chat.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In this propaganda interview recorded in Pakistan, Sergeant Hekmatullah said the diggers were off-guard when he attacked them.

(Extract from interview)

HEKMATULLAH (translated): Eight Australian officers were busy playing cards. I used this as a good opportunity. I started firing at them, I killed and injured many of them, and then I jumped over the wall of the camp which was made of mud. I got myself to a nearby village, and later on I joined the Mujahedin.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In the months following the murders, Australia's and Pakistan's intelligence agencies worked together to track down Sergeant Hekmatullah and in early 2013 he was arrested in Pakistan.

After three months' interrogation he was returned to Afghanistan, put on trial and sentenced to death.

(To Hugh Poate) What are you hoping will happen now?

HUGH POATE: Well I'm hoping that the sentence will be carried out. He showed absolutely no mercy to our boys. He killed them in the prime of their lives. They had done nothing to him other than befriend him and he turned around and just killed them in premeditated, cold-blooded murder. Ah, so yeah I'm, I'm rather hoping that the sentence will be carried out.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: So far the Afghanistan government has shown little inclination to carry out the execution.

While the families wait, Hekmatullah bides his time in jail in Kabul, where journalist Jeremy Kelly and a film crew working with Four Corners found him in apparent good humour and good health.

In this exclusive interview, the former Sergeant said that, in line with Islamic tradition, he hopes the soldiers' families will forgive him and allow him to get out of prison.

HEKMATULLAH (translated): I request the families of those who lost relatives to give me forgiveness to be released.

JEREMY KELLY: What would you do if you were released?

HEKMATULLAH, (translated): I will get a job and serve the country with either the police or the army.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Former Sergeant Hekmatullah told Four Corners that his motive for murdering the three soldiers was a film he'd seen depicting the burning of copies of the Koran by the Americans, and cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.

JEREMY KELLY: I'm hoping you can explain why you did this action?

HEKMATULLAH, (translated): When they were burning holy Korans, and I saw a film showing that, I did that.

JEREMY KELLY: How angry were you at seeing those pictures?

HEKMATULLAH, (translated): I was so angry that I carried out this action. If this abuse goes on I will do it again.

(To Hugh Poate)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Do you believe that was his real motive?

HUGH POATE: No, look this man was, again this is evidence, ah, of his ability to lie. Remember, he was um, interrogated for three months before he actually confessed to having done it so he's, he's just a liar.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: So why do you think he did it?

HUGH POATE: Oh he's, ah, probably trying to deflect the intention away from the fact that he was Taliban.

(To Kelly Walton)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: What do you believe?

KELLY WALTON: That he deliberately joined the ANA to do what he did.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: And did he do so as a member of the Taliban?

KELLY WALTON: I believe so, yes. Based on documents that I've read since, ah, he... a spur of the moment, um, attack is just... is not conceivable considering that he had in place money and people who were able to get him out and over the border into Pakistan.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: The former sergeant denies he's Taliban. Although he admits the Taliban helped him escape. He also claims he was tortured while under interrogation in Pakistan.

HEKMATULLAH (translated): During the interrogation they beat me but after I confessed they stopped beating me.

JEREMY KELLY: Can you explain the torture was?

HEKMATULLAH (translated): During the day I had a blindfold and my hands were handcuffed with my feet. They chained me so I could not move with a piece of wood between my arms and legs. They were beating me with a small shovel and a stick when I wouldn't confess. One day they brought a bucket of water and they dipped my head into the bucket.

(To Hugh Poate)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: He says that when he was captured he was tortured. Does that concern you at all?

HUGH POATE: No.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In the two years since his son died, Hugh Poate has methodically investigated the circumstances of the soldiers' deaths.

He believes the deaths resulted from a serious failure of planning and intelligence and that insufficient force protection measures were mandated by senior commanders.

He rejects the notion that the attack by Sergeant Hekmatullah was opportunistic and couldn't have been prevented.

HUGH POATE: It was planned. The evidence, ah, on the prosecution file for Hekmatullah clearly says it was planned. The Afghan National Army report itself into the incident shows that it was a planned terrorist attack.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: When an investigation team went to Wahab shortly after the shooting, they were joined by Brigadier Roger Noble, the lead ISAF officer heading efforts to counter the insider threat in Afghanistan.

He would later conclude:

(Extract from Roger Noble's report)

ROGER NOBLE, BRIGADIER (voiceover): The worst sort of guy is Hekmatullah and the reason is he thought about it… he had that afternoon to watch… and he watched the mobile piquet… he tactically prepared for the attack… and he tried to incite further violence post-incident as he went over the wall. He was quite calculated in that.

HUGH POATE: The only people who said that it was a spur of the moment thing were the Australian High Command, because the appropriate force protection procedures had not been mandated.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In other words it was a serious failure of intelligence.

HUGH POATE: Absolutely, yeah, look at the result.

(Extract from Air Marshal Mark Binskin's press conference)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In September 2013, Defence handed down its own internal report into the murder of the three soldiers.

MARK BINSKIN, AIR MARSHAL, VICE CHIEF, ADF: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. And thank you for coming.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: It concluded that there had not been a failure of intelligence, prior to the mission.

MARK BINSKIN: The Inquiry Officer found there was no intelligence available to Australia or the Coalition to suggest there was a specific insider threat at Patrol Base Wahab, nor any information to prompt concern regarding the individual Hekmatullah.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: However, it noted that before setting off for Wahab, the soldiers had limited information about the base, which meant that the Platoon Commander decided where his men should camp, only after they arrived.

MARK BINSKIN: It would be usual for the two armies to have separate areas within the Patrol Base, however given the terrain and infrastructure, the Australian Commander determined this was not possible.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: When the shooting started, none of the watch-towers overlooking the camp were occupied by Australian soldiers, and a single roving piquet was guarding the camp. He was dressed in PT gear with body armour.

The Army brass singled this out for criticism.

MARK BINSKIN: The Inquiry Officer found having a single roving piquet was not adequate in the circumstances on the 29th August 2012. The Inquiry Officer identified a shortfall in the decision making and actions that permitted soldiers to wear gym gear underneath their body armour. Two Australian soldiers have since been disciplined over the piquet's inappropriate dress.

But according to those who have served in Afghanistan and commanded troops there, this criticism has little basis in reality.

CORY NEILL: The boys were sweating so bad as you can imagine. We're sleeping under a tarp on stretches, you know you've got to wind down, you've got to air your feet. You've got to kind of air the body.

Nah... yeah, there's no way, you know? I'd love to see that, yeah that the brass that's pointing the finger go out and do it. Yeah.

JOHN CANTWELL: Wearing PT kit I think that's spot on. It means they can rest properly. The matter of whether the... the ah, guardian angel was or was not in uniform frankly, I know there might have been a policy to say so, but it really doesn't matter, does it?

If he's got his weapon and body armour what more does he need?

Whether he's wearing a pair of shorts or a pair of long trousers, who cares, frankly, it's irrelevant.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Much more damning was the inquiry officer's conclusion that only the minimum force protection arrangements had been set in place, and his criticism of the failure to segregate the Australian and Afghan troops.

MARK BINSKIN: This included not setting up a secure area for Australians where they were separated from Afghan National Army soldiers; and not restricting Afghan National Army soldiers' access to the Australian area.

(To Hugh Poate)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Was it good enough for the minimum force protection arrangements to be implemented at Wahab?

HUGH POATE: Obviously not, no the results clearly show not.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: For Hugh Poate, his wife Janny, and the families of James Martin and Rick Milosevic, the Army's investigation was entirely unsatisfactory.

KELLY WALTON: We talked and, ah, we all agreed that the, the investigation report raised more questions than it answered.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Together, the families have battled to overturn the long tradition of the Army investigating itself.

They won that battle, when a coroner in Queensland agreed to inquire into the deaths.

But the shroud of secrecy which Defence has thrown over their evidence to the coronial inquiry has angered them further.

KELLY WALTON: When we went back to Defence to ask those questions that was when we started to feel that... that things were, um, doors were being closed and, you know, the old closing ranks.

HUGH POATE: Where there's no transparency, it follows that there's no accountability. Defence have never had to submit to civilian court before or civilian oversight and they take great exception to, to it on this occasion which is why they're being so obstructive and uncooperative with this particular inquiry.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: For the families, the job of investigating what occurred and why, has been made much harder by the blackouts imposed on some evidence by Defence.

These redactions have only been relaxed after pressure from the coroner.

Now, I'll... we'll look up the same pages on what's in the brief of evidence which is nowhere near as heavily redacted as that.

Now that's page 12.

There's page 12 in what will become publicly available.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: So yes… okay.

HUGH POATE: There's a bit of a difference isn't there?

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Yes. What does that tell you?

HUGH POATE: That there's no justification whatsoever that ah... I think it's, it's an absolute insult and an outrage to give families of fallen soldiers a document of that nature.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Among the documents which the Army has refused to disclose, are fragmentary orders - or FRAGOs - written by NATO and ISAF's senior command.

Two-and-a-half-weeks before the murders, FRAGOs were issued drawing attention to the critical and growing threat of insider attacks.

(Extract from FRAGO)

This secret FRAGO, not presented to the inquest but obtained exclusively by Four Corners, warns that: "Insider Incidents have significant operational and strategic impacts on the Coalition. They pose a serious threat to Mission success."

It adds: "The purpose of this FRAGO is direct immediate Force Protection enhancements across the Combined Joint Operations Area in response to an upsurge in Insider Incidents over the last seven days."

HUGH POATE: We're talking about immediately post-Ramadan and we're talking about a period of an escalation in insider attacks against Coalition forces. It was only a matter of time before it hit us.

And commonsense suggests that what they should have done was beefed up those, um, force protection arrangements prior to attack rather than after the attack. It's too late then, they've lost three men, one - and our son.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: A second fragmentary order obtained by Four Corners, says a "Key Tasks" is to: "Conduct continuous Insider Threat Risk Assessment".

JOHN CANTWELL: A risk analysis has to be done for every mission you do you always do that. And it doesn't matter if it's a mission to go on a patrol or a mission to occupy a patrol base.

What are the risks, what do I know about it, what am I doing to reduce those risks?

Those are the questions that any commander worth their salt should be able to answer.

But at Patrol Base Wahab, where the soldiers technically were on duty even when relaxing, this didn't happen.

(To Hugh Poate)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Did senior commanders betray the trust which was placed in them, by soldiers on the ground?

HUGH POATE: In this particular instance yes.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Some of the evidence at last week's coronial hearing was given behind closed doors. But even so, significant new information has emerged.

The court heard that three previous Army patrols had been to Wahab - but none of their intelligence about the base was passed on.

The platoon's commander, Lieutenant - now Captain Dominic Lopez, said he was unaware these other patrols had been there.

DOMINIC LOPEZ, CAPTAIN (voiceover): The company that we conducted handover with had not been to Wahab, and my understanding was that the taskforce as a whole had also not been to Wahab… If we were able to access their patrol reports upon knowing that we were deploying to Patrol Base Wahab, we would have…

JOHN CANTWELL: I would have asked what do we know about the place we're going to? How did it get there, was it built by someone else? I, I understand it was built by Australians.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: That's right.

JOHN CANTWELL: It would ah, therefore seem reasonable to say that Australians - someone in an Australian uniform - knew what the physical makeup of this place was.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: When Milo, Marto and Poatey went to Wahab, the threat of an insider attack was judged to be low.

But back at base on August the 29th the mentoring team's intelligence officer, Corporal Samuel Mathieson, prepared an assessment in which he judged that the threat was 'high'.

Corporal Mathieson concluded that:

SAMUEL MATHIESON, CORPORAL (voiceover): ANA at Patrol Base Wahab have the capability and resources to conduct an insider attack, due to the layout of the base facilitating interaction between Australians and the ANA."

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: This assessment was both prophetic and too late. It was made just two hours before the shooting took place, and tragically it never reached the soldiers on the ground.

Even more seriously, a key task order which decreed that guards should work in pairs to protect Australian soldiers working with the Afghan counterparts was also not passed down to the platoon.

HUGH POATE: I think this is the main issue. The intelligence that was known, further up the chain of command just didn't make it down there. And I think had it got down, they would've taken their security far more seriously than they did.

KELLY WALTON: I think that it's about time that the Army was scrutinised in a civilian court. And clearly we can see that there are deficiencies in a system and they need to be addressed.

Has the ADF learnt from their mistakes in the past or are they just going to continue to bury their mistakes?

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In the aftermath of Sergeant Hekmatullah's murderous attack, the focus of Australia's mission in Afghanistan changed from mentoring the ANA at close quarters, to force protection.

ROBBIE DIXON: We went from day to day training them in first aid and in ah, search techniques and infantry mortar tactics, to pretty much double staggered piquets, um, body armour all the time, um, weapons ready to go all the time.

Um, and it wasn't a... it wasn't... personally I don't think it was a very good look.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: This enormous wall at Forward Operating Base Mirwais was built to separate the Aussie diggers from their Afghan counterparts. And soon, Australia's forces started to withdraw entirely from bases like this one.

The Task Group's Commander Lieutenant Colonel Scott insisted at the time that this had nothing to do with Sergeant Hekmatullah's attack and the consequent loss of trust between the forces.

TRENT SCOTT: There has been a change in the dynamics, at the local level. I mean, that green on blue incident on the 29th of August, nothing to do with the transition, or their development.

We're not pulling off them because of insider threat, or an insurgent threat or any of that. We're pulling off them because they're well on track to be independent.

HUGH POATE: These men would still be alive today in my view if the force protection measures that were implemented immediately following the incident had been in place and should have been in place, at the time of the incident.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: What should Lieutenant Colonel Scott have done?

HUGH POATE: Well he should have implemented the force protection procedures which are mandated after the event. Quite, quite obviously.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Hugh and Janny Poate's garden is a constant reminder of Private Robbie Poate, who went to war for his country and didn't return.

JANNY POATE: This was his favourite place. I find myself talking to him, um, different things, what should I do here?

Sad that he can't see it like this but it's a way we can just remember Robbie, in a sort of a happy environment really. It's a living memorial rather than just a plaque.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: The public record of the sacrifice of the fallen is here at Australia's War Memorial in Canberra, where the names of Private Poate, Lance Corporal Milosevic and Sapper Martin, are engraved on the Roll of Honour.

Robbie Poate used to go to dawn ceremonies here.

HUGH POATE: He was very taken by - let's call it the ANZAC spirit. And he thought he'd like to become part of that and share in it.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: And James Martin visited the memorial while on training at Kapooka.

SUZANNE THOMAS: He was the one who reflected on, the gallantry of others and the sacrifices made by others and... it was something that he took very seriously.

And he happened to be standing right in the place where I was standing when I laid the wreath for the private ceremony when um his name was added to the War Memorial.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: But did the mission justify the sacrifice?

(To Kelly Walton)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Was it a mission that was worth soldiers putting their lives at risk for?

KELLY WALTON: In hindsight may... ah, probably not.

(To Cory Neill)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Was it worth it? Was it worth the sacrifice?

CORY NEILL: Oh definitely not.

ROBBIE DIXON: It would've been so much easier to accept if the boys had died doing what they loved, being out on a patrol, being able to fight back. It was just such, such a sad way to see them go.

(To Hugh Poate)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Was the mentoring mission worth the loss of life?

HUGH POATE: No, definitely not.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Sometimes the simplest questions are the hardest to answer and if you've lost a son, maybe no answer will satisfy the question.

We did seek an interview with the Department of Defence, but they won't be commenting until after the coroner's findings are revealed and for that the families will have to wait until next year.

A Defence spokesman did say in response to the claims of Sergeant Hekmatullah that he'd been tortured, that he had never been in Australian custody.

Next week a Four Corners investigation on Khaled Sharrouf who shocked Australia and the world with the pictures of himself and his young son holding the heads of executed victims, we explore his involvement in radical Islam and in Sydney's criminal underworld which has made him the gangster jihadist he is today.

Until then, good night.

Background Information

SUPPORT SERVICES

The Defence Family Helpline | 24-7 for support, information and connection with the local community | 1800 624 608

Defence Care | A charity helping current and ex-serving members of the ADF and their families | www.defencecare.org.au

Inquiry Officer Inquiry Report | Into the facts and circumstances surrounding a shooting incident that resulted in three deaths on or about 29 August 2012 | Defence Publication

Inquiry Report on insider attack released | Vice Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, today released the Inquiry Officer Report into the deaths of three Australian soldiers at a small patrol base in the Baluchi area of Uruzgan province in Afghanistan on 29 August 2012 | Army Media | 24 September, 2013

Not so friendly fire | Green on blue attacks like yesterday's shooting of three Australian soldiers will continue until the International Security Assistance Force completely withdrawals from Afghanistan | ANU | 31 August, 2012